


A Tale of Two Revans (pt 2)

by Sweven



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Not Canon Compliant, phase three, roguerobin010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 01:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10956834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweven/pseuds/Sweven
Summary: Not everything is as straightforward as it was back when they were saving the Galaxy. Two Revans try to figure out why they've met.





	A Tale of Two Revans (pt 2)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Tale of Two Revans](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231835) by [OrderOfRevan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrderOfRevan/pseuds/OrderOfRevan). 



Carth looked at the pair in front of him and despite the improbability of it all, he believed them. Revan and Revan. How alike they seemed, no matter their face or gender or any other exterior differences. Their jibes and jokes were the same, the way they held themselves, the poised and commanding air that surrounded them both was distinctly Revan. Carth had no trouble believing that this tall stranger was who he said he was.

They spoke in familiar voices, his wife and this new Revan. Cass, he called himself. Carth saw the familiar pattern of yellow around his eyes, recognized the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and Carth wondered how similar or different the two Revan’s actually were. A shared name did not equal shared experiences.

 

Carth blinked and the stranger was gone. He shook his head as he entered. All of this was beyond him, how Force-users could abide by an invisible power interfering in their lives like this was incredible.

 

“He’ll be back,” Revan said after Carth wrapped his arms around his wife. He looked dubiously at the empty spot where Cass had stood mere moments before, not particularly pleased with her assessment. “Good day at work, honey?”

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Carth was still processing the events. He was on leave for a few weeks and it wasn’t playing out like he’d imagined.

When he and Revan had settled on Coruscant, months ago, they’d finally been allowed the opportunity to create a home, a shared space that wasn’t the Ebon Hawk. The ship had been crammed full of other people and it had always been on the move, always in that strange in-between stage of where they had been and where they were going. He’d hated it a bit, back then. He’d wanted nothing more than to save the Galaxy and go back to his old life.

It wasn’t until the end of their journey that he fully realised that his old life was gone forever. In his heart of hearts, he’d still thought of Telos as his home, had dreamed of Morgana, Dustil, and their shared, long-dead past that lay behind him. Carth thought he had mourned that loss years earlier, but when the threat Malak posed to the Galaxy was suddenly gone, Carth felt a new wave of grief in the emptiness. Revan helped him look forward instead of backwards, had helped him see the potential of a future with her. He’d told her that he could love her, and love her he did.

This new future that he dreamed of was different. He wasn’t dreaming of kids, he and Revan were both getting a bit too old for that in his opinion, but he did dream of a home they could call their own, and time shared between the two of them. Now… he feared that this future was in jeopardy and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Carth had loved Revan back when he’d know her as Max and he’d decided to continue loving her as he’d watched her turn into Revan, slowly but surely. He knew that he would love her for the rest of his life, but it was different now, and sometimes he missed the times onboard the Ebon Hawk.

Everything had changed when they went to Coruscant and Revan had left her lightsaber with the Council, when she’d come back to him furious and full of anguish at the Jedi Masters who still dared judge her, _still_ after everything she’d sacrificed. She’d changed. He couldn’t help but wonder how different their lives would have been if she’d stayed in the Order. Maybe she would have been happier then.

 

Revan needed a purpose, Carth knew. He wasn’t sure if she knew it yet. During his last tour on duty he’d realised that she was bored on Coruscant. Revan needed to be in motion, to be the driving force behind the action, to make things happen, and lately she’d been wasting away doing nothing. Sitting still didn’t suit her.

Carth had wanted to talk to her about this during his leave, but he didn’t have to now. Since Cass had appeared in their sitting room, the familiar spark of purpose had reappeared in her eyes. Every moment she didn’t spend with him, she spent pursuing the conundrum that was Cass. Revan was more herself now than she had been for a long time and despite his worries, Carth was happy for her.

 

* * *

 

 

“You should go to the Jedi Council”, he said to Revan as they were washing up after dinner one evening. She’d been telling him about her attempts at tracking down some of the Jedi that had fought for her during the Wars. She remembered so few, and most of them were dead or had been out of contact with everyone in Republic space for years and years. Her frustration hung like a cloud over her.

Revan laughed bitterly. “And tell them what? That they have two Dark Lords to worry about now? That I want to contact a few Fallen Jedi? That’d go over well, I’m sure.”

“ _Former_ Dark Lord _._ You’ve more than proved that you’ve changed, you saved us all”, Carth nudged his wife’s shoulder. This wasn’t a new conversation, it had just had a new flavour to it lately. The Jedi Order had been a point of contention for the two of them ever since their return to Coruscant. “I don’t like them more than you do, but they’re not the enemy in this, they might be able to help you figure this out.”

“What, so they can take my saber away from me again”, Revan muttered under her breath as she angrily scrubbed at a plate.

“At least talk to Bastila again. She’ll understand. Or well. She’ll try to?”, Carth said and rescued the plate from his distressed lover before it got chipped.

She sighed and stilled her hands. Carth knew his wife well enough to know that she was giving in. “You’re going to nag me until I do it, won’t you? Fine. But I won't enjoy it!”, Revan tossed a handful of soap bubbles at Carth in mock-anger and the tension in the room dissolved a bit. She giggled as he wrapped her in an embrace and he felt her relax, both of them eager to melt into each other and forget their troubles for a bit.

 

* * *

 

 

Cass returned a few weeks later when Revan was in her training room. She was still no closer to discovering what this odd anomaly meant, and she only needed to glance at his face to know that he hadn’t made better progress than she had.

“The Council won’t let you study the holocrons either, huh”, Revan said, voice flat and unsurprised.

Cass gestured in exasperation. “I’ve tried everything. They won’t budge, and they refuse to listen to anything I say. They say that I’m ‘too untrustworthy’. It’s infuriating”, he crossed his arms and looked around appraisingly. “But I guess you feel the same way. I went down here to burn off some steam. Just finished your katas, yeah?”

Revan ignited her lightsaber and twirled it casually, smoothly moving into a combat stance. “You and me both, I’d wager. Care to spar a bit? I could use the exercise.”

A grin was stretching across Cass’ features before she’d finished the sentence. “Let’s go.”

 

An hour later they were both exhausted but the sparring match had lifted their moods significantly. .

“It’s strange”, Cass began, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, “that you fight so dirty. I thought we were supposed to be the same!”

A bark of laughter escaped Revan’s throat as she heavily sat down on the mats. “I think it’s stranger that you rely so much on the Force! What happened to good old lightsaber combat?”

Cass sat down besides his counterpart, a soft grunt of pain escaping him as he leaned back onto the wall. “Too much jumping around has made you lose your wits. It’s all about the finesse, you’re just using brute force to gain an advantage. Where’s the art in that?”

Revan smirked. “Well, you can’t deny that it worked a couple of times”, she said before holding up her hand. “Peace. We were evenly matched, despite our differences. I’m too exhausted to argue the finer points of combat right now.”

“We really are _very_ good”, Cass said happily, slightly dazed from the intense exercise. “I call dibs on the ‘fresher.”

Revan groaned in response.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you remember...”, Revan asked Cass as they sat on the balcony, quiet rain blurring the lights of Coruscant, the weather covering the sector like a blanket. Cass had been here for almost two days now, but they still hadn’t figured out why he was there. Revan appreciated his company though, Carth was back on duty. The apartment always felt very empty when he wasn’t there. Revan hesitated, overwhelmed by new memories, before she continued, voice wavering slightly. “Do you remember the Battle of-”

“Duro? Yeah I do”, Cass said softly. “In vivid detail…”

A quiet moment passed. “Have you told Bastila that you remember?”, Revan asked but continued before Cass could answer, her voice thick with anxiety. Her fingers were turning white from her tight grasp on the cup of caf she was holding. “I haven’t told Carth yet. Didn’t want to freak him out even more. Dark Lord of the Sith and all… He says that he knows I’m not that person anymore, but if I begin remembering…  I don’t know… Where does Revan end and Max begin?”

“I told her. Not like we can keep many secrets from each other, between the bond and us being together basically every waking moment. I think this is the longest I’ve been away from her since she Fell actually”, Cass looked out at the vista thoughtfully. “I hope she's alright… “

“She's on Coruscant, yeah? She can take care of herself”, Revan said, voice filled with sympathy for her counterpart. “She’s tough as nails, despite it all. Malak wouldn’t have been interested in her if she wasn’t.”

Cass chuckled and nodded in agreement, worry still creasing his forehead. “You should tell him”, he said after a moment. “Bastila was mostly alright with it, and you know how scared she was in the beginning that we’d turn back into a Sith Lord at any moment. Whoever we were back then… That person is dead. Revan is dead. We survived them. Onasi knows that.”

Revan nodded, glad to have Cass to confide in. She didn’t have many friends she could talk to about these things, and Cass obviously had a unique perspective. They sat in silence as the rain poured silently down over the city, both thinking back on what terrible deeds from their shared past they remembered, and both finding comfort in the other.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been half a year since Cass’ appearances had started. At this point they were all getting used to it. Revan had grown to look forward to his visits, but Carth wasn’t always too pleased with the arrangement. He had learned the hard way to put on pants before leaving the bedroom, their guest tended to show up at inopportune times. Revan had laughed about that for days, and Cass still found it highly amusing to tease Carth about his midnight wanderings.

Cass said that his Bastila was unhappy with the situation, which made sense to Revan. If Carth suddenly started disappeared for days at a time, often while they were in the middle of something, Revan would be more than a little frustrated. One time Cass had been particularly happy to see Revan. He was supposed to be at a Jedi meeting that looked to be dreadfully long and boring. A meeting which he'd been awfully glad to miss, but as he told them a few weeks later, Bastila had been furious that she’d had to sit through it alone.

When they were together, they tried to work out why he was there. Cass told them of the strange disappearances of stray Jedi, and they both sensed a looming darkness drawing nearer, an emptiness echoing through the Force. The Force was difficult to read these days, even when they focused their energy together. All they knew was that something was coming, something big and scary. Carth shook his head at the two Revans as they discussed the potentially Galaxy-shattering future with enthusiasm and vigour.

 

When Cass wasn’t there, Revan tried figuring it out by herself. She spent much time meditating, both alone and with Bastila, desperately trying to follow the flow of the Force to an answer.

When the futile meditation grew too frustrating, Revan tried to figure out if this phenomenon had occurred before, but she wasn’t a part of the Order any longer which, much to Revan’s chagrin, meant that her ability to research was limited. She’d known that leaving the Order had consequences, but her life had always been intrinsically tied up with other Force-users. Resources and connections had always been readily available to her, through the Order or her followers during the Wars, and now it was just her.

Carth listened to Revan complain about the lack of access to historic knowledge of the Force. Even Bastila couldn’t help much. The Order knew that she was still close with Revan and they didn’t trust her enough to give her access to the Library.

Despite her complaints, Carth saw the smile on his wife’s face and how she, day after day pressed onwards, determined to reach her goal.

Carth was happy for her, he truly was. He delighted in seeing her burning with fervour again, in seeing her glowing with excitement at the challenge, and even if he didn’t understand her exuberance when faced with future disaster, he still tried to help whenever possible. He was constantly reminded why he’d followed this person to hell and back.

 

Her sleepy smile was blinding when he told her one morning in the soft, pink light of dawn, that he would follow her again, no matter where she went, that he’d always be at her side if she’d let him.

Still, worry had seeped back into his shoulders without Revan noticing. Worry about the future that he’d hoped they’d get to have, worry about the Force ripping their lives apart as it had done before. Carth was mostly worried that Revan would get swept away by another Galactic event and that this time she would decide that Carth couldn’t offer enough, that she’d leave him behind.

‘Trust in the Force, it knows what it's doing’, Bastila would have said back when their journey had begun so long ago, and Carth scoffed. The Force had played too many tricks on them for Carth to trust it. He wasn’t even sure if Bastila would agree with the statement now, after everything that had happened.

 

* * *

 

 

“Where are you headed?“, Cass asked her one day, moments after he appeared in her speeder and very nearly made her crash into a Weequay going in the opposite direction.

“You can't just _do that_!”, Revan exclaimed loudly as she tried to signal an apology to the other pilot.

“It's not like I can control it“, Cass mock- pouted. “It’s been a while, what are you up to these days?“

“You mean apart from crashing into traffic?!”

“Ah come on, we both know that you're a better pilot than that, I'm only surprised that you didn't draw a weapon on me as well”, Cass said, a smug tone sneaking into his voice. “Maybe I have better reflexes than you? We aren't _exactly_ the same after all.“

Revan groaned. “Shut up, flyboy, we both know that that's not true.” She shot Cass a dirty look before continuing nonchalantly. “I’m on my way to work, of course.”

“Wait, work?”, for the first time since they'd met, Cass had lost his glib tone. His slackjawed expression was highly satisfying, Revan thought. She made a mental note that she should make him look like that more often.

“Yes. It’s a thing where you do a thing and then people pay you for the thing, maybe you’ve heard of it?”, Revan smiled sweetly.

“I know what a job is, you brat. Since when do you have one?!”, Cass exclaimed.

“A while. You disappeared for months you know. I got bored without you.”

“But… why? The Republic pays all of your expenses, you haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

Revan smiled at her counterpart as she turned the speeder towards the lower levels. “I found myself in dire need of a distraction. Or well. Carth thought so at least. I think I was getting on his nerves… I couldn’t keep spending all my time trying to figure this thing out anyway” Revan waved a hand at Cass. At his exasperated sigh, she took pity on Cass and continued. “Mission and Zaalbar opened a garage down here after we got back from the Starforge. I decided to help them out when I’m not busy.”

Cass looked dubious. “With what, cutting things open with a lightsaber?”

Revan shot him a strange look. She wasn’t hearing the humorous inflection she expected. “No… I repair droids of course?”

A full laughter escaped his throat and Revan realised that he was being serious. “Wait, you can’t fix things? How did you repair HK?”

Cass’ cheeks reddened slightly. “I managed. Kinda. I uh. never really properly relearned that skill. I was busy saving the Galaxy you know.”

“I keep forgetting that we’re so different, despite it all”, Revan said, shaking her head slightly. “Well, welcome to an alternative version of your future.”

Revan pulled the speeder into a spot and hopped out. “Come on then”, she said as T3 rolled around the corner and greeted them. Even at a distance, they could hear Mission arguing with Zaalbar inside and Revan sighed happily. Cass followed, a bemused smile on his lips.

 

When they left the garage, the metallic voice-box of HK bid them farewell with its usual murderous flourish. Mission was handling a new customer who looked more than a little worried about the establishment he’d chosen to fix his protocol droid.

Cass was unusually quiet. It wasn’t until they were sitting in the speeder that he spoke. “This is so strange… After the Starforge, I couldn’t imagine not being in the Jedi Order, what would I do with myself?”, Cass said softly. “This is an entirely different life. You’re not bound by all their rules, you can do whatever you want.”

“This life has its limitations as well, but it’s a different kind of freedom, for sure”, Revan said as she wiped a bit of excess oil off her fingers with a dirty cloth. “I like it. It’s better than spending all my time meditating at least. Working with my hands helps keep me grounded. When I came back, I stayed with the Order for a few weeks, but their distrust was tangible and everything was so abstract and focused on some kind of arbitrary peace. I always felt like something was brewing under the surface. I couldn’t stay there, but it took me a while to realise why.”

Cass nodded absently. “Bastila was definitely the reason why I stayed, why it’s bearable but… Maybe we need to figure out our own path as well.”

He disappeared when they were halfway to the apartment and Revan wondered what kind of game the Force was playing.

 

* * *

 

 

Revan woke up bathed in sweat, with images of terrible events flashing before her eyes. The vision had shown her blinding power and all-consuming energy, ashen wastelands as far as the eye could see, and such _terrible_ pain and suffering, but it was the wounds in the Force that made her hands shake. A tall, blonde woman had stood before her, furious and righteous, icy-cold rage pouring off her in waves, but where her life-blood should sing to the tune of the Force, there was nothing.

Revan tried to make sense of the vision. She remembered fragments of the horrifying things she’d seen during the Wars, but the pure emptiness of the woman made her shudder. The nothingness, the total and utter numbness of a being so cut off from the rest of the universe was staggering. Revan drew on the Force, breathed in and reached out, revelling in being able to feel the life around her.

 

This time she anticipated Cass’ coming. Revan sensed his presence in her living room before she’d finished putting on her shirt. Hurriedly, she went out to meet him.

“Meetra”, both of the Revan’s said in unison, and they both recognised the haunted look in the other one’s eyes.

“How could anything be that… hollow? That disconnected from everything?”, Cass asked, voice pained. “What happened to her?”

Revan shook her head. “I’m not sure, but we need to find her. She’s the key to whatever’s coming.”

“Bastila has been summoned to Katarr. There’s to be a congregation, but…”, Cass hesitated.

“I know. Something’s going to happen there, something bad...”, Revan continued. “Can you talk her out of it?”

“She’s going to want to be in the thick of it, but with the baby coming, I think it’s possible”, Cass said. “What about Carth? Will he go with you, if you leave?”

Revan shrugged, her worry apparent in the short motion. “I don’t know. Maybe. He says that he’ll follow me to the ends of the Galaxy if need be, but I don’t know if I can ask him to do that again.”

“He’ll never forgive you if you don’t, you know”, Cass said with a small smile, and Revan laughed, a short unconvincing sound. It still helped them shake off some of the tension left from the vision.

“I suppose not… Everything is changing again, isn’t it? When we returned from the Starforge, I thought that was the end of our grand adventures. That we’d finally be able to get a bit of peace after all these years of struggles…”

Cass shook his head softly. “Peace isn’t our way, not really. It hasn’t ever really been”, a sly smile crossed his features and he continued. “We’re Revan, after all. Forged in triumphs and greatness, chosen by the Force to shape the future, and to look damn good while doing it.”

Revan grinned at him. “And we’re so _humble_!”

The two Revan’s looked at each other thoughtfully. “I think this is the last time we’ll see each other”, Cass said and Revan nodded. “That’s going to be strange. I think Bastila will appreciate it though, she doesn’t like sharing”, he finished with a chuckle.

“Good luck kicking ass”, they said simultaneously and grinned at each other. In the blink of an eye, Cass disappeared, and Revan stood alone in the dark room.

 

When Revan crept back into bed, Carth stirred slightly, sleep-mussed hair peeking out from under the blankets. “Everythin’ alright, love?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, go back to sleep”, Revan said and shaped her body to her husband’s back. Silence settled in the room and Revan listened to Carth’s even breathing. She’d grown used to this, to them, to a more normal way of living. Could she abandon what they’d built on a whim?

Revan smiled in the darkness. Of course she could. She’d begun to love it here, the normalcy of it all, but the prospect of another venture into Wild Space made her slightly giddy. Revan was made of action and fire, and everything she loved here, she could bring with her. Her husband, her friends… They’d all follow her in a heartbeat. And she would let them.

  



End file.
